May Day falling last week, as is very well known, has long lost its Labour Day intent and flavour certainly in this country, degenerating into the political carnival all Lankans are familiar with. With a presidential election due later this year, predictably the various contending parties made the occasion one of trying to demonstrate their pre-poll strength by transporting their supporters by bus and train for the various rallies organized in Colombo. This, of course, has always been done, but the incentive to make the show bigger was more so last Wednesday. While it was easy enough to see that a great deal of money had been spent for this purpose, it was less easy to judge who put up the biggest show although there were many claimants for that achievement.

The hurrah boys of some of the contenders for the presidency had promised all kinds of revelations on May Day. But very little surfaced with a single, little known MP from the Moneragala district switching allegiance from the SLPP to the UNP. There was also the already stale news that Justice Minister Wijeyadasa Rajapakshe will be the SLFP candidate for the presidential crown. We all know he will not wear it, at least the next time round, but former President Maithripala Sirisena announced his candidature at the SLFP’s muted May Day show at Gampaha.

What Rajapakshe’s intentions are, we don’t know. But the comedy continues and we can easily guess that he’s probably looking at the next parliamentary election rather than the presidency at least at this moment – whatever may happen in the future. He’s been serving many masters since his entry from the legal profession into parliament in 2004 on the national list of the SLFP and later by election. He’s thereafter held several cabinet ministries and chairmanship/membership of different parliamentary oversight committees. He’s now been named acting chairman of the SLFP but since restrained from assuming that position by the courts. The determination of an appeal on that judgment is pending.

The UNP which has been claiming many SJB defections to be announced on May Day pulled in a single minnow from back of beyond, not from the SJB but from the SLPP, into its ranks. Party hacks didn’t bother to even talk about it, leave alone make any noise. But the Wickremesinghe cheering squad keeps saying there are several months to go before the big election and are asking the country to await developments. So also the SLPP, out of the woodwork since the aragalaya, which while repeating they will field a candidate at the presidential poll remains shy of revealing that worthy’s identity. Though his father has said that Namal Rajapaksa has more time, the latter continues to champ at the bit.

One small clue from the SLPP May Day platform was the presence of billionaire businessman Dhammika Perera. Clad in his trademark blue suit and red tie, he looked a fish out of water among the political hoi polloi. Although he had barely spoken in parliament since he succeeded Basil Rajapaksa in an SLPP national list seat and briefly held cabinet office, his DP Education initiative offering free IT distance education remains alive and kicking. Observers believe this signals that Perera is not yet old hat as far as his presidential ambitions are concerned.

The anticipated May Day announcement of his own candidature by the president did not come to pass, some say to the disappointment of the Nimal Lanza-led group of SLPPers waiting to toss their hats into the Wickremesinghe ring. This made them keep off the UNP rally this May Day until the candidature is formally announced by the real McCoy rather than his acolytes. There was no clue last week on why Wickremesinghe chose to remain personally silent of his candidature although there are a multitude of signals that he plans to run. The latest among these was the president’s announcement on the CWCs (Ceylon Workers Congress) Kotagala May Day platform of the long promised Rs. 1,700 daily wage for plantation workers.

Newspaper correspondents resorted this May Day to identifying who was present where, and who was not at particular events to read the political barometer. Field Marshal Sarath Fonseka was present at the SJB rally which he left early probably because he was not given a speech. Observers attribute this to the ongoing squabble between Fonseka and SJB leader Sajith Premadasa.

In May Days of long ago when the old left, affiliated to many trade union federations, was alive and kicking, newspaper correspondents resorted to the not very accurate practice of timing which procession (often called demonstration) took the longest time to pass a given point. Given the pace of the marching and spacing between different sections of the processions, it is doubtful whether this was a reasonably accurate measuring device. But it was often practiced.

Galle Face green was then the most preferred venue, often hogged by whoever was in office, but public meeting are no longer permitted there. Many of this year’s May Day events were confined to the streets with the SLPP choosing the more open Campbell Park – and making much of it – while others chose smaller open spaces and the streets where participants were packed into narrow confined spaces with obvious attempts to outdo each other in terms of crowd show. Mahinda Rajapaksa projected his party as the kingmaker in this year’s presidential contest claiming that nobody could win without their support. The JVP/NPP had four rallies, big ones in Colombo and Matara, one in Anuradhapura and the smallest in Jaffna.

Saturday 4th May, 2024

The Bandaranaike International Airport (BIA) has always been a metaphor for chaos. It has earned notoriety for flight delays, lethargy, lack of facilities, inefficiency and various irregularities. It should be given a radical shake-up. But instead of making an effort to bring order out of chaos there, the government has rendered BIA even more chaotic by involving a foreign company in the issuance of on-arrival visas.

On Wednesday night, the personnel of the foreign company withdrew from the on-arrival visa counters after failing to handle the task they had undertaken to perform for a fee. The Immigration and Emigration officials had to step in to man the counters.

The Department of Immigration and Emigration has been handling the on-arrival visa section itself all these years, and there was absolutely no need for that task to be outsourced. Visitors to Sri Lanka now have to pay the foreign company as well, and on-line visa costs have increased, as a result.

Tourism industry stakeholders have reportedly written to President Ranil Wickremesinghe that Sri Lanka charges the highest visa fees in Asia, and they impede efforts being made to increase tourist arrivals.

Instead of heeding concerns being expressed about the involvement of a foreign company in running the on-arrival visa section at BIA and the resultant increases in visa fees much to the detriment of the country’s tourism industry, the government has launched a witch-hunt. Claiming that chaos at the on-arrival visa section was orchestrated by some Immigration and Emigration Department officials, it has threatened action against them. It has said on-arrival visas will continue to be issued by the foreign company.

Whose brilliant idea was it to outsource the task of running the visa-on-arrival section? Why did the government decide to bring in a foreign company? Why can’t the Immigration and Emigration Department issue on-arrival of visas? What were the criteria used in selecting the company concerned? Who decided on the fees the company charges from visitors to Sri Lanka?

Has any government politician benefited from the visa deal? Ruling party politicians would not have taken up the cudgels for the foreign company for nothing in return. They are all out to ensure the perpetuation of the controversial visa operation. It is only natural that one smells a rat.

The issue of a foreign company being involved in the issuance of on-arrival visas must not go uninvestigated. The government owes an explanation. It is hoped that the Opposition will take up the issue and make a serious effort to get at the truth. It will be interesting to see the reaction of the various trade unions at BIA to the controversy.

Friday 3rd May, 2024

Much is being spoken these days in Sri Lanka about voting intention surveys. Their findings are flaunted by some presidential aspirants in a bid to bolster their claims and counterclaims. But even those with a nodding acquaintance with psephology will see that it is too early to gauge popular support for any presidential candidate, much less make predictions about elections, with the help of opinion survey results.

Public opinion and perceptions do not readily lend themselves to quantification. Hence there could be many inaccuracies in opinion survey results. There have been numerous instances where predictions based on the findings of public opinion surveys, etc., went wrong.

Harry Truman won the US presidential election in 1948 although opinion surveys had predicted victory for his rival, Thomas E. Dewey. In 2016, many polls on Brexit predicted a narrow win for the ‘Remain’ campaign, but the opposite of that prediction came true. In 2015, David Cameron became the British Prime Minister, proving many pollsters wrong; they had predicted a hung parliament. In 2020, pre-election polls indicated a close race between the National Party and the Labour Party in New Zealand, but Labour under Jacinda Arden’s leadership, scored a landslide victory.

In 2014, most of the pre-election surveys underestimated the level of popular support for Narendra Modi and predicted only a narrow win for the BJP, which however scored a stunning victory. Ahead of the 2021 German federal election, opinion polls failed to predict the impressive performance of the Social Democratic Party. In Sri Lanka, it was claimed in the run-up to the 2015 presidential election that Maithripala Sirisena was committing political hara-kiri by vying with the then President Mahinda Rajapaksa for the presidency.

Pre-poll surveys predicted a comfortable win for Rajapaksa. All state intelligence agencies, which do political work, also said in their confidential reports that Rajapaksa would win. Those predictions as well as astrological advice made Rajapaksa advance the presidential election. But Sirisena pulled off an upset win.

Meanwhile, the presidential election campaigns of President Ranil Wickremesinghe, Opposition Leader Sajith Premadasa and JVP/NPP Leader Anura Kumara Dissanayake, have already peaked, and show signs of plateauing. It will be an uphill task to maintain their momentum in the next few months, given the unpredictable nature of political dynamics, unexpected swings in public opinion and unforeseen circumstances that are beyond the candidates’ control.

Election campaigns are like marathons, where only experienced endurance runners know how to pace themselves properly and achieve success. There is no guarantee that one can win an election by launching one’s poll campaign before all others. It may be recalled that President Mahinda Rajapaksa embarked on his campaign to secure a third term immediately after his victory in the 2010 presidential race, but Sirisena, who entered the fray towards the end of 2014, took only about 40 days to come from behind to beat Rajapaksa in the race.

All presidential candidates are heavily dependent on social media to get ahead of others. But social media content does not necessarily reflect public opinion, for it is manipulated. Inflated metrics have become the order of the day in this digital age. Click farms which take contracts for improving or destroying images of individuals and organisations are in overdrive these days, and according to our sources, they charge as much as five million rupees for two-week campaigns each.

These online engagement manipulation operations are aimed at influencing public opinion; they are even employed to mobilise flash mobs or trigger and sustain ‘leaderless’ protests. So, one should not go by social media content alone in drawing conclusions about possible outcomes of elections.

We commented on the predicament of a New Zealand politician about two decades ago. Believing in a pre-poll survey prediction that he would win hands down, Keith Locke of the Green Party became so cocky that he swore at a public rally that he would run along the streets in his hometown naked if his opponent won the seat. He lost the election, and came under pressure to fulfil his pledge.

He made good on his promise, but had himself covered with a body painting and wore a G-string! So, our presidential hopefuls would be well advised not to make the same mistake as Locke, or they had better have G-strings ready!